Business Publication Of The Year

TOYOTA is recalling 2.43 million hybrid vehicles over potential problems with stalling.

The company said that in rare cases the vehicles might not enter a ‘fail-safe’ driving mode, leading to them losing power and stalling. Power steering and braking would still work, but a stall at a fast speed could increase the risk of a crash.

The recall applies to some Toyota Prius, pictured, and Auris hybrids made from October 2008 to November 2014. The vehicles were involved in an earlier recall that didn’t fix the previously unanticipated problem that is being addressed now, the company said.

Toyota said it would update the software of the vehicles to remedy the problem for free.

The recall applies to 1.25 million vehicles in Japan, 807,000 in the US, 290,000 in Europe and 3,000 in China, with the rest elsewhere across the globe.

Toyota said it had received three reports in Japan relating to the problem by the end of September and had reported them to the transport ministry but they didn’t involve accidents.

The company wouldn’t comment on incidents outside Japan, saying it was difficult to be certain about actual cases.

The recall is meant to address situations in which the failure of a specific component, coupled with hard acceleration, could cause the vehicle to lose power rather than enter a fail-safe driving mode.